Park Yong-jin: "Removing Income-led Growth from Party Charter is Moon Jiwugi... I Oppose It"

Claiming the election loss was due to income-led growth is just another 'blame game'
Deleting it from the platform without proper effort is uncharacteristic of the Democratic Party

Park Yong-jin, the Democratic Party of Korea's presidential candidate, holds a press conference on preventing factionalism at the National Assembly Communication Office on the 8th. Photo by Yoon Dong-joo doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Naju-seok] Park Yong-jin, a candidate for the leader of the Democratic Party of Korea, expressed opposition on the 12th to deleting ‘income-led growth’ from the party’s charter. Park said about income-led growth, "It can be supplemented," and added, "Deleting it is not the image of the Democratic Party."

On the same day, Park mentioned the internal discussion on revising the party charter through social media (SNS). He said, "They say they will delete income-led growth, one of the three core pillars for President Moon Jae-in’s ‘inclusive growth’ policy: income-led growth, innovation growth, and fair economy," and claimed, "Replacing ‘income-led growth’ with ‘inclusive growth’ is an inexcusable attempt to erase President Moon Jae-in."

Park pointed out that "‘Inclusive growth’ is not a word that replaces the expression of income-led growth but is a higher-level concept itself," and noted that "Our party’s charter already includes terms like and ," which he cited as reasons for judging this as an attempt to erase the Moon Jae-in administration.

Regarding this, he said, "I feel the seriousness," and defined it as "Removing the achievements of Moon Jae-in, who concretized Kim Dae-jung’s values as a party for the middle class and ordinary people through the methodology of income-led growth, from the Democratic Party’s charter."

Park argued, "We lost power not because of the failure of the income-led growth ‘policy’," but "We never even properly implemented the ‘policy’ based on the value of income-led growth." He listed major policies of the income-led growth line that were pledged but ultimately not implemented, such as , , , and and said, "Deleting our direction from the charter without even properly trying? It is an extension of the blame-shifting line that ‘We lost power because of the Moon Jae-in administration’s wrong policies.’"

Park said, "Income-led growth aims to increase the income of the majority of wage workers, millions of self-employed people, platform workers, and freelancers, thereby creating effective demand through their consumption," and added, "The line to grow by increasing the income of the majority of the people clearly contrasts with the Yoon Seok-youl administration’s ‘investment-led growth’ line, which focuses on growth centered on conglomerates."

Regarding conflicts between self-employed people and low-wage workers caused by the rapid rise in the minimum wage during the Moon Jae-in administration, which was controversial, he acknowledged, "There are certainly shortcomings," and said, "This part needs to be supplemented." However, Park emphasized, "There are still many detailed pledges of income-led growth that have not yet been tried. But deleting this line itself from the charter is not the image of the Democratic Party."